Live to be outside: Pancakes and milkshake

The National Park Inn at Longmire never ceases to impress me. This time, Susan, myself and my two co-workers Jeff and Jake decided to go there for pancakes first thing on Saturday morning.

Considering it is at least a two hour drive there from Seattle, Susan and myself decided to make the drive Friday evening instead and camp out. So we left Seattle after work on Friday evening and arrived with the intention of camping. Being Friday evening, campsites within the national park are hard to come by - so Susan decided to inquire with the Inn at Longmire about room availability. Turns out they had none (no surprise), but miraculously, the Paradise Inn had a last minute cancellation. Susan handed them the plastic, and the room at Paradise was ours! Success.

We arrived at Paradise at 9pm, just as a ranger talk about climbing a mountain was starting. How pleasant and relaxing to be sitting in a great big lodge, eat some snacks, and letting the ranger take you away to the magic realm of mountain climbing. We slept well after that, eagerly awaiting the great meal in front of us.

We met Jake and Jeff back at Longmire at 7am on Subday morning, just as the Inn was opening. I was excited, and we were seated at a table for 4, coffee all around. We chatted a little bit about the exciting weekend ahead of us, but soon we had to turn our attention back to the menues, as we were probably all pretty hungry. I knew what I wanted, a large stack of pancakes. The crux of the ordering part was that the Inn only advertises a "short stack", equating exactly 2 pancakes. I had to be brave to overcome this, I asked if they could furnish me 3 pancakes, and yes for a little extra dollars they will happily serve you 3 delicious pancakes, with a slice of orange on the side - blackberry and regular syrup. The waitress actually recognized me and Susan from another visit a few months ago, which gave it a little bit of a homestyle feeling.

After having 3 cups of coffee and the food processed, we were done. All of us delighted with our meals. Well done with breakfast, it was time to go for a hike up to one of the local mountains. It was a nice day and more of a hike than we wanted to finish in one day, so we camped out for the night on the Wapowety a ridge with a beautiful views all around us. In fact we arrived in camp in the early afternoon and instead of pressing on, decided to nap the afternoon away in the sun. Next day we proceeded to finish the hike. So lovely so spend time outside.

Resting at camp during our hike

It was now Sunday evening, and after our hike it was time for the other highlight of the trip - dinner and milkshake at the Copper Creek Inn!. It is quite popular and we had not made reservations, so we did have to wait for nearly 20 minutes to be seated. However, we were welcome to start with drinks in the entrance to the restaurant while waiting. Jake, Jeff and Susan each had a beer, but I waited since I was about to have a milkshake - which does not mix very well with beer. Neither of us had actually been at the Copper Creek Inn before, but both Susan and myself chose the burger, which had tempting bacon and a fried egg on it. Wow, together with the home made (actually store made) blackberry milkshake, it was a real treat. Jeff had a steak and Jake a salad, which both looked pretty good. I do think they made a mistake by not ordering a milkshake though... Heavenly delight.

We could not stop with just dinner but proceeded towards having dessert, and what could be better than blackberry pie. Unfortunately we were all pretty stuffed, so we could only manage to share a piece between the four of us.

Filled up to the brim, we limped out of the restaurant, and happily drove home. I think we were all pretty delighted with this trip, which had good food, good friends and a nice hike!